Listening/reading through a Bill Evans rendition of My Foolish Heart, in A major.

In the Real Book it’s written in A♭, unfortunately, so a bit of work is needed to follow along harmonically — particularly to follow his rootless left-hand voicings. It’s a nice way to spend some time. I could hang out on a few of Bill Evans’ transitions and just revel in the masterful balance of the 4-note left hand voicings with the single melody note on top. Perfectly balanced.

Bars

  1. Starts on the major I△ (melody on its 5th; 3rd inversion chord) to the major IV△ (melody still outlining the major 1; 2nd inversion chord)
  2. Now into the iii and VI⁷ chords of a major 2-5-1 (leading to the diatonic minor ii, see bar 3). Melody on the 11 of the minor iii voiced as a major chord on the 5th scale degree, the minor chord’s 3 5 7 9. Same quality of chord has been played for the first three chords. The 3rd chord leads nicely with one voice moving a half step into the 3 13 7 9 of the dominant VI⁷ chord. Standard “B” 2-5 voicing a la Mark Levine (I think). Anthony Mele (my music teacher in college) introduced them to me as “Bill Evans often plays these” or something to that effect. And so he does.
  3. The major 2-5-1 leads (deceptively, part of the charm of the piece) into the diatonic minor ii (voiced as a major 7 on the 4th scale degree, same voicing as the minor iii in bar 2; melody outlining the minor ii triad). The “B” voicing of the the 2-5-1 turns out to work very, very smoothly into a minor 1 on the ii (incidentally, much more smoothly than in the actual “B” voicing that leads to the major 1, which is how these are taught!).
  4. Tritone substitution! Another “B” voicing of a dominant 7 chord on the 4th scale degree; in the Real Book written as a (much more square-sounding) dominant 7 on the on the 7th scale degree.

2023-09-22: This is a work in progress.

Bars

mm.b Chord M (scale) M (chord) Notes
1.1 I△ 5 5  
1.3 IV△ 1 5  
2.1 iii 6 4  
2.3 VI⁷ 6 1  
3 ii 6 5  
4 VII⁷alt 7 1  
5.1 iii 7 5  
5.3 III⁷alt 7 1  
6.1 vi 1 3  
6.3 VI⁷alt 1 ♯9 Bass: TT down to ♭III
7 ii 1 7  
8.1 II⁷ 9 1 Inner voice: 13
8.2 II⁷ 9 1 Inner voice: ♭13
8.3 V⁷ 9 5 Inner voice: 9
8.4 V⁷ 9 5 Inner voice: ♭9
9 I△ 3 3  

mm.b = measure/beat M (scale) = Melody degree in the scale (or tonal center? So far there are no modulations…) M (chord) = Melody degree in the chord